Vassal of Darkness
by Nayru Elric
Summary: Link and Midna have given up everything to save the kingdom of Hyrule and its people. Are their fates cruel or fitting to the lives they led before? Lidna one shot.


Two rock walls close in on either side of me, a deafening whir passing through my ears. I am thrown against the perforated side of the wall's hard surface, throat clinging to the life granted by the oxygen speeding by. The jagged, rocky edges tear at my clothes, causing me to gasp in shock and release my grips on my sword and shield. I hear them clang loudly against the wall whizzing past, echoing for a millennium.

Upon impact with the ground, a cobweb of pain shoots down my spine and then branches throughout my entire body, stunning me into stillness. The ribbon of light from whence I'd come, which seems to be kilometers above me, is a mere speck in my vision, and soon fades out of focus.

My sight has been reduced to nothing but blackness – my consciousness threatening to slip out from underneath me. My body is restless, convulsing within the green tunic binding my rapidly-heaving chest. I'm too numb to react to the damage I know now impends on me. It's then Midna appears from her shadow, – which is actually my shadow, – a look of deep concern etched on her irregularly mismatched face. Inhaling with haggard rasps, I'm unable to assure her that I am all right, – my expression undoubtedly shaken, – though, really, I am far from all right.

How I'm not dead, I don't know. I dropped what must have been at least 500 meters. A stupid skirmish with a stupid assortment of enemies: a flock of three Kargaroks and three red Bokoblins. They would have been easy to take down. If they hadn't cornered me against the bridge before Kakariko, made me lose my footing, and tumble down into the trench to the river below.

A thunderous _CRASH!_ awakens my senses to my surroundings, and my eyesight returns to see Midna has used her neon-orange ponytail to block the projectile of a creature in the river in its intent to kill me.

The creature continues to glare at us with eyes full of hunger: two oval, piercing yellow orbs on either side of its head – which also seems to be its entire body. Hovering above the surface of the water, two extending tentacles brush the air with great delicacy. The mouth in between its two eyes sucks at the dryness of the deep bed of the trench. Its overall body color is purple, with a streak of red down the middle. More tentacles keep it steady from underwater. I've never seen such a creature before. "What is that thing?" I probe quietly, my body still immobilized in a heap of white sand and numbness.

The sea creature re-dips its head below the surface of the trickling water, and as it resurfaces, it spits another projectile straight at me.

Midna boldly crosses herself between me and the creature, fending off the attack. She bars her teeth at it and curses, her single fang sticking out over her blue lip. The next time it spits, Midna grabs the clump of – what looks to be – slated stone and chucks it back. She doesn't hit her mark, but she threw it close enough for the creature to retreat to a more downstream location. We watch it propel with the water's current, leaving behind only the sound of the running river.

Midna relaxes, gradually drifting downward to stand on the ground rather than hanging in midair. She looks up to the gap between the two rock walls, and so do I, still on my back and unable to move. It's midday, and the sun isn't visible – barely a streak of light in the sky. Both directions, up and down the trench, the river carves its way through the rocky ground, curving around the cliff sides. Besides the creature that spit projectiles at us, there's no other sign of life in the trench.

My paralysis suddenly vanishes along with my numbness, and the pain and impact my fall had on my body is no longer remedied. It cascades down on me without warning or restraint in a tumultuous bombardment of agony, and the croak that escapes my lips as I curl into a ball is not a pleasant one, nor very worthy of someone named a "hero" by multiple Spirits of Light.

Midna comes over to me, tentative, the same concern in her expression as she watches me writhe from the fractures in my bones and bruises on my skin. "L-Link..." she whispers, and there's something pleading about her tone. She knows she can't carry me just as well as I do, even with her arcane Twilit magic. She can't do anything to help assuage my pain. Just speak to me; be there with me.

It's another hour before I feel apt to moving from the spot I made impact with the earth. Somehow, I am able to shift myself onto my hands and knees, dragging myself through the tiny dunes of white sand to the waterside of the river. As I get closer, I feel a certain energy radiating from the water. A familiar, calming sort of energy. I pull off my leather boots, dipping my bruised, pale feet inside. Immediately, I feel the bones in my toes mending, the tension drain from my muscles, and the color returns to my legs, my pain carried downstream.

Ah, yes. How could I have forgotten that sensation of curing rejuvenation?

"This river must lead off from Lake Hylia," I comment, more to myself than Midna, though I know she hears me. Light Spirit Lanayru's healing spring water must still have an affect this far from the lake.

After allowing my legs to dangle in the slow current of the water a little longer, I strip off my arm guards, green tunic, and chain mail, and slowly ease my entire body into the water. The water's healing powers are nothing short of a blessing, but I can tell they aren't nearly as concentrated as when I'm directly in the Light Spirit's spring.

Twenty minutes of soaking later, I realize that's all the further I'm going to mend, – which is quite a large improvement, no longer cringing at the slightest twitch, – and climb out of the river, pull my clothes back over my head, strap my arm guards onto my forearms and step in my leather boots.

Midna watches me clip the last strap of my arm guard around my left forearm, then asks, "So, Hero of Light, now that you're all fixed up, how do you propose we get ourselves out of here?" Her arms are crossed and her right red eye flickers with impatience. I know she doesn't mean it. I figured that out a while ago.

I retrieve my Hylian Shield and the Master Sword from the ground, both quite a few paces away from where I'd fallen. "Got me," I say with feigned crass, bantering with her just as she did me. I re-sheath my sword, nestle my shield into place on my back, and glance up at the ribbon of light so many meters above us.

Midna scoffs and shakes her head. "I'm being serious," she says, hands on her hips as she floats back up to my height to be eye-level with me.

"So am I. Unless you want to warp us out, we'll have to walk along the cliff until we find a point where we can get back up."

Midna looks up too. "That's way too high. We don't have a clear enough shot at the sky for me to warp us out."

I shrug – I'd known that's what her answer would be, but I pretended not to so she'd still get to have her laugh. Then again, she's stuck down here with me also. "Well. Then we'd better start walking." I start the – what I assume will be – long saunter upstream where surely we'll find our way to Lake Hylia or high enough to warp, but after about five steps, I stop.

"What's wrong, Link? What're you stopping for?" Midna prods, having crashed her head straight into my back.

Feet shuffling in the white sand, I turn back around, deciding to take the alternate route: downstream.

"Hey, hey, hey! Where're you going?! Aren't we going to try to get _out_ of here, not go farther in?!"

"I never knew Lake Hylia branched off through all of Hyrule before," I mumble vaguely.

"Yeah, and there's probably a reason for that. We should go _forward,_ upstream where we can be certain we'll end up close to the lake. Not go forward. Anything could be waiting ahead."

"That's why I want to go forward," I say. "Did you see that creature that attacked us before? I've never seen something like that before. I want to know where it came from."

"But you were delivering a message to Renado from the resistance before you fell!" Midna calls exasperatedly, coming to a halt in midair. "Don't you think you should carry out what you promised you would?!"

"Telma said I didn't have to get it to him right away. Must be nothing too important," I reason.

Midna stays silent for a few moments while I tread through the tiny dunes of white sand downriver, the only sound coming from the rushing water. "Your horse is still up there, you know!" she shouts belatedly – a last effort to convince me to turn back. I don't listen to her. My mind is already made up.

A few more moments pass, and finally she speeds to catch up with me, giving me an annoyed look. "If we live to regret this, I'll only say, 'I told you so,'" she tells me sternly.

I laugh with good humor. Until later. When we do regret it – more than either of us could ever have guessed.

* * *

The two cliffs on either side of us show no signs of lowering any time soon, and after a few hours of walking, the sun ceases shining on the world, nighttime swallowing our only source of light high above from the crack between the two rocky wall faces. The farther we follow the river, the more curdled and rotten the water looks. Black swirls kick up at every trickle – eddies form more and more frequently. Then, the water takes on the shape of something sick – something diseased, black, and oily. Dead.

By full-blown, swooning, endless night, neither Midna nor I can see the river anymore. Or the cliffs that loom beside us. I know the river is sickly by how quiet it has become. I can no longer hear the water climbing over stones and sifting through the white sands – there's now a solid dirt floor beneath my feet.

I am about to agree to turn back when the stench fills my nostrils. A horrible stench that makes my eyes water and I cover my mouth so I won't gag. Midna does the same, and in the lightless night, I can still see a glimpse of her red eye peeking through the darkness, the blue runes on her body illuminated faintly – as they always are.

But the trench path suddenly comes to an end, which I notice as the crescent moon peeks its white rays silently from behind the thick clouds above in the night sky. The sides of the cliffs have actually been crumbling, becoming shorter and shorter, for the last 5-kilometer stretch now. Holding my nose and looking back, this is what I see. And when I focus back to the ahead, the obscuring mist and clouds blocking out the moon have disappeared. I can see everything.

The gurgling sounds of the sickly water have surceased now. Before me, there are a couple spindly trees, and behind those, a lake. A lake full of the toxic water from the river. Or was the toxic water from the lake? I assume it isn't the latter, because the river was flowing from Lake Hylia, which looks nothing like this sick, blackened water.

There's something else unsettling about the scene. Atop the murky water, there are islands, and wooden walkways leading to those islands; walkways made by human hands. At each island, on the walkways, there is an archway with a single dim, yellow lamp, somehow still lit and piercing through the mist that has reclaimed its clutches on the lake – which is so large I cannot see the other side. Maybe it's not a lake at all. Maybe it's a sea.

The dead silence of the place is spooky to say the least. Unable to resist the temptation, I step close to the water's edge and onto the first walkway. The sound of my sheath clinking against my shield is the only thing to be heard aside from the moaning of the ancient wood.

"Link, what are you doing...?" Midna whispers.

"I'm going to see where these walkways lead," I say.

"Shouldn't we be heading back now? This place doesn't look all that inviting to me." She gestures to the corroding wooden walkways sloshing around in the black water.

"We've come this far. Why would we turn back now?"

Midna sees there's no point in arguing with me, and as we continue forward, she stays close. I wonder what's making her act like such a child. Usually she's the one egging _me_ on, saying it's no big deal. And she's a being of the Twilight, where the most terrifying of monsters are spawned.

I start to wonder if maybe she can sense something that I can't after about 45 minutes of careful stepping on the swishy walkways' boards. The mainland is ages behind us now. Who knows if I'd be able to remember the exact path we took back anyway?

Then the rumbling begins.

It doesn't resemble any rumbling I've heard before. Not like the clouds rumble before a storm, or the low rumbling of a Goron rolling at top speed down the path to Death Mountain. No. It's like... a million pairs of legs, all clustered together, heading for the same destination.

Midna and I search the area of naked islands and walkways and their single-lamp arches wildly. The mist almost hides it, but we see the dust cloud being kicked up by them. The rumbling is so loud now that there's no way we wouldn't see it: a clutter of about six fully-grown Skulltulas charging straight for the island we currently occupy. (Their eight legs scuttling across the wood and dirt grounds of the walkways and islands had been what caused such rumbling.)

I unsheathe the Master Sword, unhook my Hylian Shield from my back, slashing in the air as a confidence booster. Midna hides in my shadow, and I don't have time to prepare myself for their attacks. The frontal two spiders lunge at me in unison, immediately putting me on the defensive and sliding my boots back a few meters from their original position. The other four then cluster around me, soon joined by the first two, trying to knock me off of the island. More than just the oil-black and deathly complexion, I get the feeling there's another reason I should stay clear of the water.

The Skulltulas are all vying for a chance to pound me with one of their eight deadly strong legs. _No way I'm letting myself get pushed off another ledge! _I think furiously. Cornered, I slash one Skulltula in the leg and stab another in the face. The abrupt thump of a comrade on the ground makes the others more reluctant to take a swipe at me, and I'm allowed a bit of space. I utilize this space with great efficiency, swinging my sword back and forth, left and right, hacking their hairy, spider legs as they screech in pain. I put the completely debilitated Skulltulas out of their misery, which leaves only three left, all wary of my sword, stained with the guts of their fallen brethren.

One recklessly lunges at me all on its own, fangs extending, and I see a mouth below its eight, shifting eyes. I crouch down to the right, and as the reckless Skulltula's body glides past mine, I stab it in the belly. Its dying squeal is what, I believe, drives the remaining two to deal out the fitting revenge.

Panting now, muscles screaming with vigor, I watch the two Skulltulas' every move, both slowly circling around me on opposite sides. Momentarily, my mind is distracted by the tantalizing thought of escape, and my eyes, darting about the vicinity, spot the next walkway I was about to cross with Midna before the rumbling started. The island I am battling with the Skulltulas is raised quite a length above the surface of the black water, and the next island, even more so. From one island to the next, there's more of a bridge than a walkway floating on the water, and on that island, I see there's more than just dirt. The island is taken up by a boulder connected to it, standing probably 30 or 40 meters high.

If – _when_ the two Skulltulas decide to come at me, I will be attempting to fend off two enemies from completely opposite directions. That's no good. Once the Skulltulas are both at the halfway point, I make a break for the bridge and get to the next island over with the huge boulder when something stabs at my back, lurching me forward, shoving me onto the ground. Nose nearly touching the rock wall, the pin-needle pincers of one of the Skulltulas clamps around one of my legs, dragging me across the ground. I flip myself over, reposition my sword in my hand, and begin jabbing at its eyes. After a couple jabs, the spider recoils and lets me go, but before I can stand the other has pounced on me and clubs me in the face with one of its legs. Head spinning, I lose my grip on the Master Sword, and raise my shield to block any other oncoming attacks. Instead I'm picked up, dangling by one leg, and thrown against the large boulder.

The wind is knocked out of me when I come back to the ground because I'd hit a sharp ledge, which confuses me. The ledge hadn't been jagged or rocky at all. Like it'd been purposely carved out of the rock face.

The Skulltulas are bearing down on me again, and this time I don't have my sword to defend myself. Only a shield to protect myself. "Midna," I rasp.

She already knows what I want, appearing with the cursed stone Zant had implanted inside of me to forever bind me in my beast form. Struggling to my hands and knees, a slight nick on my finger is all it takes, and I feel my insides rearranging, my eyesight evolving, my senses heightening. My hands mold into paws below me, pads pressed against the ground. I'm well used to the horrible reorientation needed to be successful in wolf form by now, and jump on the face of one my perpetrators, sinking my teeth into the bitter exoskeleton of flesh, albeit still dizzy. My increased agility and sense of smell help guide me into what I cannot see. As the Skulltula becomes limp in my jaw, I wrench my teeth out of it and make a full 360 spin to tackle the last.

I snap rapidly at the Skulltula's face, growling and snarling. Careening out of control, it bashes into the wall with me still on it, screeching bloody murder. I lock my jaw onto the back of the spider's neck and hold tight. It jerks and twists every which way, bashing us repeatedly into the wall to get me off.

Finally, it dies.

There's a certain satisfaction as I release my clenched jaw from the defeated Skulltula's tough neck flesh, but the new ache in my body denies me from having too much joy.

Midna appears from my shadow again, fetching the Master Sword from where I dropped it beside the huge boulder. She sets it in front of me, slumped and panting from the strenuous scuffle I'd just endured, and as I place one paw on the blade, reverting back to my human self, – to the body I feel most comfortable in, – she eyes me. "Why didn't you use my Twilit forcefield to take them down all at once to begin with?"

Sitting with my back against the boulder, I ignore her attempt to lighten the mood, the pungent taste of Skulltula flesh lingering in my mouth from when I'd attacked in wolf form. I can feel warm blood oozing from the spot the Skulltula clubbed me in the face, and my back aches from where I was thrown against the boulder and into the ledge. Which reminds me.

I bring myself to my feet, stare up at the ledge. There's no doubt about what I see. It was carved by humans, all right. I'm curious as to what's up there – if anything – and climb onto the ledge.

Midna sighs. "Battered like that and you can't rest for a minute, can you?" she says quietly. There's nothing teasing about her tone this time.

Around the bend of the boulder, a cave with a pitch black opening lies in wait. For some reason, I don't even hesitate to go in. I unclip my lantern from my side, light it, and scan the walls for anything.

As Midna comes in to hover beside me, I do find something, though it isn't at all what I'd expected. She stares at it with me, my expression a mask of startling recognition.

"It's like what the Light Spirit said," I say after a long time, my throat dry. Midna watches me. I wait for a reaction out of her, but she doesn't give one. Like she knows something that I don't. Or maybe she knows there is nothing she can do to comfort me.

On the wall I'm staring at, there's the depiction of a beast, – a blue-eyed beast, – devouring a heart bursting with light. The beast's eyes have become enraged with gluttony, mercilessly crunching its teeth into the being of the Light Realm.

I become scared by the satisfaction I'd felt when I single-handedly defeated those six Skulltulas. What would happen if one day I began to crave that feeling of triumph too much? Would I start feeding on the lives of people?

The taste of the Skulltula's reeking flesh is repulsive in my human mouth, but as a wolf, such things seldom bother me. I'd received this kind of warning from the Light Spirit Lanayru as I'd already mentioned. I was warned of the power of the Fused Shadows Midna and I had sought – of being consumed by the overwhelming desire to take control of the unlimited power of the Triforce. Is this just another version of that? Or is this directed at me personally, the hero chosen by the gods?

Either way, it doesn't matter. All the power I've been endowed with recently has been due to my quest to purge Hyrule of Twilight, and regain the kingdom for Princess Zelda. There's no way I can just let all of that power go, even if I want to. As the "chosen one," it doesn't much matter what I want. I'm always bound by the fate of Hyrule resting on my shoulders.

No matter how much I give up, no matter how much the people of Castle Town don't deserve it, no matter how much I miss my old, peaceful life, where the highest responsibility I was given was to catch a runaway goat of Fado's, I have to complete this task the Golden Goddesses set up for me from ages ago. If Hyrule is plunged into Twilight, into despair, it will be my fault. And only my fault.

Actually, that's a lie. Though not as greatly, the weight of the Hyrule's and the Twilight Realm's fate also rests upon the scrawny shoulders of the imp right beside me. She decided to take it upon herself to assist me. In the beginning, she did so purely to gather the Fused Shadows and face Zant on her own, but now she's decided to aid both of our worlds by helping me rather than going it alone. Which is why we currently search for the fragments of the Mirror of Twilight.

After all this, – after we've either saved the world or left it to rot, – what will become of us? Will our people appreciate what we've done? Will the goddesses have another task for their chosen hero to carry out? Will we get to see our worlds as they change and grow? Or perhaps not? Will we simply die in the final battle?

I know one thing: There's a zero percent chance of things going back to normal.

No, my goat-herding days have long set sail. The kids of Ordon don't view me as the kind of hero I used to be anymore. To them, as the oldest "kid" in the village, I was always their idol, and they looked up to me. Ilia gave me a hard time for acquiring somewhat of an ego, but she'd be happy to know my ego has been chiseled into a few teasing remarks at Midna these days – that is, if Ilia ever remembers who I am...

This "war" of worlds has changed everything, and after it, will I only be left to watch myself descend into madness? In many ways, I find it happening already.

All these thoughts run through my head as I stare at the depiction of me devouring the heart of a dweller of the Light. Midna can tell my reaction is too delayed for something to not be wrong. She approaches me, but I wave her off. It isn't her fault this happened to me. To both of us. She acts like there's something on the tip of her tongue, but she doesn't say it, and I don't think it's anything I don't already know.

"We should go back," I finally agree, nodding my head. I lift my face to meet hers, trying to conceal my worry for the future.

Midna searches my face for something – maybe a sign that I don't know what she's thinking or what she was going to tell me. Then she brazenly twirls in the air, outcrying, "_Now_ you're saying we should go?! I've been trying to convince you the entire night!"

I cough out a laugh. "Hahaha! Well, if I'd known this only led to an army of spiders and some cave drawings, I would have listened! But I didn't know!"

Midna mutters, "Sure you would've," leading the way out of the cave. I turn my back on the wolf drawing.

We understand each other; feel sympathy for our equally ugly situation. Our reasons are different, yes, but ultimately the same theme carries through for both.

After everything, no one will know the independent, internal conflicts we battled with each passing minute as the Demon King Ganondorf plotted against our efforts. No one will notice the years of torture bottled behind our eyes, our every word...

And to some, we will still be considered nothing but murderers. These "some" include our enemies, Princess Zelda, and ourselves. Never would the people of Castle Town, Kakariko, or Ordon Village dare cry out against their savior. But we, the real victims, will know the truth of our victory – that it is blackened with the blood of thousands fallen to my sword and Midna's cunning.

Forever shall we remain vassals to the darkness in our souls.

* * *

**I've needed to write a story for Twilight Princess for four years now, when I played my first Zelda game – which was Twilight Princess.**

**Link and Midna's relationship is one most tend to overlook, but there's something between them that no other Zelda companion will ever match – in my opinion. This story was originally conceived from a dream I had, and definitely deviated greatly from that original dream. Hope it turned out okay!**

**May this beautiful game – and my **_**first**_** OTP of Link and Midna – rest in peace.**


End file.
